welcome to the MFO discussion board: civility is most important when all around you are turn toxic March 2025 coda: I am very sympathetic to the argument that much of our national dialogue and decision-making, just at the moment, is dominated by self-blinded ideologues, self-important amateurs, lickspittles, pompous mountebanks, braying popinjays, and hollow-hearted poltroons whose ill-conceived, constitutionally dubious edicts and ham-fisted policies have been rightfully struck down in courtrooms across the nation.
That having been said, it is in our shared best interest not to imitate those we most despise by allowing our frustrations to spill over into discussions that are read by - and encourage silence from - some of the hundreds of people who visit the board each week but who do not post on it. If you must vent to keep your head from exploding, post in Off-Topic and not Other Investing.
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The board is the direct descendant of the FundAlarm forum, which flourished from 1996 through April, 2011. Like FundAlarm, we have resisted the call to create bunches of sub-forums. Mostly there are Fund Discussions and Off-Topic Discussions, which range from market calls to book recommendations. If you want to read only the fund-relevant stuff, click on the category called Fund Discussions and set that as your bookmark for MFO.
Unlike FundAlarm, we have traditionally been lightly moderated. Our only code of conduct is to encourage "civility and good humor." The "rules" were never more complex because (a) the two of us responsible for MFO's day-to-day operation both have more-than-full-time jobs as college administrators and teachers and we don't really look forward to spending our couple free hours in the evening policing behavior and (b) it's not been necessary. About 98% of the time, folks are thoughtful and respectful, even when sparring. Our key tool for monitoring conversations is the "flag" button that sits atop every post, just under the poster's name. If you flag a discussion, Chip - MFO's co-founder and technical director - gets a notice and she checks it out as soon as she's home from work. If the issue is murky, she hands it over to me to sort through.
If a discussion gets flagged, I'll try to reach out to the poster with an appeal to be a bit more careful. If the same poster gets flagged repeatedly, I move them into a "moderation queue" which means that their posts don't appear in public until one of us reviews them. (That's a pain in the butt.) Getting banned is incredibly rare; we've banned six posters (three of whom appear to have been the same person, posting, praising themselves and sniping at others) out of the 2997 people who have registered for the board.
A fair number of folks have recently migrated in this direction from the Morningstar boards. Welcome! If you've got questions, concerns or suggestions, feel free to message me or send at email to David at Mutual Fund Observer dot com. To send a private message to any member of the board, click on their name to go to their profile page. On that page, you'll see a button called "message" across from their name. Click that and you can reach them directly and privately. There is also a "leave a note on their wall" option which is sort of built into the Vanilla software. In general, don't. It's not private and it appears on a page that most members rarely visit.
Communication is a tricky business. The reason is simple: our words carry only about 10% of the meaning of our messages. The rest of the meaning is created by our relationship with the person we're speaking to (imagine the reception of "you're such a dope" by 10 random people in your life; some would laugh, some would poke you back, a few might blush ... and several would report you to the authorities), by our non-verbal behaviors (from "saying it with a smile" to tone of voice), by our shared physical environments ("I'm so hot" reads differently if you've said it at the end of a five mile run on a summer's day than in a nightclub) and our cultures (the f-word is one word in 10 for some cultures and, hence, no big deal; for others, it's a deadly affront). Here's the problem: on a discussion board, that all-important 90% is missing. We're stuck with just our string of incomplete, easily misunderstood words. Please choose them wisely and gently.
Whether you're one of MFO's longest-tenure members (Old_Joe wears Badge #9) or one of its newest (Perrywinkle - howdy! - weights in at #2997), remember just a handful of rules for keeping the community healthy and engaged:
1. remember that for every active poster, there are 20 other people who read the board without signing into it. As a result, what you say is heard by folks you've never met and who have no way of knowing that you're just being you. Write with the unseen, anxious bystanders in mind.
2. remember that you have almost certainly misunderstood the comment you're responding to. All of us hear imperfectly, impute motives incorrectly, jump to (what seem to us to be perfectly logical) conclusions. So perhaps a good starting point in any response is to double-check that you understand the question and the concerns that lie behind it. If you're interested in details, click on the Resources tab above and download Miscommunication in the Workplace. It's a field guide that I wrote nearly a decade ago and am still trying to update.
3. remember that your comment is almost certainly going to be misunderstood. Everyone else suffers from the same human frailty that you do. Take a moment to reread your note, perhaps clarifying or softening it, before hitting "post discussion."
4. remember that your respondents might be tired, headachy and dealing with an impossible situation at work, but they're almost certainly not trying to be hurtful. It just sounds that way. Take a deep breath and try to de-escalate an exchange gone awry.
5. failing all else, hit "flag" rather than sniping back. We'll do our best to help.
In the weeks ahead, we're going to work to train Chip's son, David, to serve as a moderator here. David already does a lot of invaluable work under-the-hood here, from updating old profiles to formatting each month's issue for the web. We're grateful for his willingness to help keep the MFO community vibrant, open and engaged.
With profound gratitude to you all,
David
Why Oil No Longer Rules The Stock Market This is a very well written article. Discusses the pros and cons of the energy market. It’s curious that the article is dated December 24. Oil (the commodity) has been moving higher for at least a month. Brent is leading NYMEX and topped-out at around $68 today. Was under $50 early in the year.
The refiners should have followed oil higher. The closest thing I own (to refiners) is PRNEX. It’s a natural resources fund, but traditionally keeps a heavy footprint in energy. Here’s the top holdings (from Morningstar):
Total SA
Linde PLC
Bp Plc, London
Air Products & Chemicals Inc
NextEra Energy Inc
TC Energy Corp
EOG Resources Inc
Concho Resources Inc
ConocoPhillips
RPM International Inc
With today’s .32% gain, PRNEX is now up close to 17% YTD. Most years that would be considered a nice return. However, with 30% & 40% gains in some other sectors, a mere 17% this year receives little respect.
FPA Launches FPA Flexible Fixed Income Fund $100k minimum to get in. See ya later...
Eric Cinnamond's new fund Palm Valley Capital fund (PVCMX) Howdy.
Good question, and I suspect that Mark is about right. Mr. Cinnamond is, beyond any reasonable question, a very talented stock selector. He's also adamantly unwilling to pay more for stocks than he thinks they're worth. He probably one of 10 or 15 managers left with an absolute value orientation; the Fed killed off the rest by pouring in stimulus any time the market threatened to dive.
As of 9/30, he owned seven stocks and was maybe 7% invested. Those seven have outperformed their benchmark but the portfolio, as a whole, is up just 1.3% since launch on April 30.
I suppose the best way to use Palm Valley is the same way you'd use a hedge fund. It would be a 10% position that's uncorrelated with the market and likely to offer a substantial buffer when things turn south. In the meantime, it modestly outperforms an ultra-short bond fund (MINT or RPHYX, for examples).
David
Roth or Trad IRA rollover? Wife will take a 403b where she doesn't work anymore and roll it into an IRA. Age 47. Should we go ROTH or Traditional? The total in the account is approaching $10k. Our reportable income will be about the same or LESS than before. There is a 19 year age gap between us. If she doesn't make enough money from which to deduct IRA contributions, I don't know what to do. If we "redeem" the $10k into a regular, taxable investment account, there will be the penalty to pay, plus a tax hit, because that money will count as INCOME for the year... It will be going from V'guard VEIRX to TRP, probably their BALANCED fund. I've done my homework, with just one or two funds we are seriously interested in at Price.
Durable Capital - Ellenbogen's new hedge fund
WealthTrack interview with Ed Hyman forecasting a positive 2020 outlook I’m quite happy with
backwards looking 20
19. Let’s not get carried away! Gold’s been ripping the past few days. You only need a small exposure to metals or mining to feel the octane punch.
Why Every Investor Should Own Hazardous Waste Stocks
DBSCX - Doubleline Selective Credit It's not just that no broker sells it (see
M* purchase page for the fund), and that it's not shown on DoubleLine's
public-facing website, but that only DoubleLine itself (acting as an adviser for accredited investor clients) may buy shares. The fund is not registered with the SEC under the
1933 Act for public sale.
From the
prospectus:
Purchase and Sale of Shares
Shares of the Fund may currently be purchased in transactions by the Adviser or its related parties acting in their capacity as investment adviser (or in a similar capacity) for clients, including separately managed private accounts, investment companies registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”), and other funds, each of which must be an “accredited investor” as defined in Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”). The Fund also may permit purchases of shares by (i) qualified employees, officers and Trustees of the Fund and their qualified family members; (ii) qualified employees and officers of DoubleLine or DoubleLine Group LP and their qualified family members; (iii) qualified affiliates of DoubleLine or DoubleLine Group LP; and (iv) other qualified accounts. The Fund expects to offer its shares to a broader group of investors in the future, including, potentially, through a public offering of its shares following registration under the Securities Act, and the Fund may in its discretion make its shares available for purchase by any other investors from time to time without notice to shareholders of the Fund. The Fund may at its discretion reject any purchase order for the Fund’s shares.
* carew388: "ZEOIX has a transaction fee at Fidelity, E-Trade and Vanguard also. Not sure how long Firstrade will continue to sell all OEM's with no transaction fee"
carew388, I am not aware of any brokerage without a TF for ZEOIX. The other issue with ZEOIX is that it has a 1% redemption fee, if sold in the first 30days of ownership. I don't like redemption fees, even though I understand the reasons the fund company charges them.
DBSCX - Doubleline Selective Credit I stumbled across this at Morningstar and haven’t been able to locate anywhere that this one can be purchased. Not on Fidelity, Schwab, or TD. Even the brokerage as part of my 401k which offers lots of institutional shares turns up nothing.
Anyone else looked into this fund?
Munis poised for big year in 2020 @stillers - I pulled this off Fidelity's Fixed Income research site:
"Municipal bond volume will finish the year above $400 billion for the fourth time since 20
10 and third time in the past four years.
“Considering how slow the year started, no one had that number or thought we would get there,” said one New York trader. “We were one pace for only about $330 billion six months in and then boom, all of a sudden all the taxables hit and here we are.”
The muni market saw $433.27 billion back in 20
10, $444.79 billion in 20
16, and a record high $448.6
1 billion in 20
17.
“Expectations are high for next year volume wise,” he said. “Buyers should still be eager to buy munis as a true taxes safe haven, with principal, interest and callable bonds that should amplify demand as well. Munis are poised for another big year."
There are no deals on the calendar until the week of Jan. 6. The New York MTA is scheduled to sell $
1.5 billion in two separate competitive sales on Monday, Jan. 6. They are then scheduled to jump back into the market on Thursday, Jan. 9 when the authority is expected to sell a total of $939.555 million of green bonds in three separate sales."
